Tennessee investors back S.F.-based PandoDaily news site

Sarah Lacy is founder of PandoDaily, a technology and startup news website.

A group of Tennessee investors, led by Jumpstart Foundry creator Vic Gatto, contributed to San Francisco-based PandoDaily’s Series A funding.

The group of investors, half from Nashville and half from Chattanooga, raised more than $500,000 and led a $1.2 million round for the tech and startup news site founded by Memphis native Sarah Lacy.

PandoDaily and Launch Tennessee announced in October they were partnering on the Southland, a Nashville conference that focuses on startups in the Southeast. The partnership prompted Tennessee investors to support PandoDaily as a way to bring more exposure to regional startups, Gatto said.

“As Launch Tennessee continues to do Southland, we are going to bring more attention to Tennessee,” Gatto said. “That will be good for all of our portfolios, to have Pando cover that stuff for the West Coast … This will be a good investment, but also a chance to shine a light on (companies) in the South.”

PandoDaily, which launched in January 2012, has raised $4.2 million to date.

Lacy wrote in a post published Monday on PandoDaily that she got to know many of the Tennessee investors through Southland and that she wanted her company’s investor base to reflect its growing areas of coverage. She pointed to the joint venture with Launch Tennessee, as well as acquiring site NSFWCORP, as “opportunistic” moves that contributed to PandoDaily’s growth.

“(The partnership) allows us to build a distinct national event franchise, profitably,” Lacy wrote. “We are already sold out of major sponsorships and ahead of plan on Southland revenues.”

In June 2013, Lacy delivered the keynote interview at the first Southland conference, which drew more than 650 people. Southland 2014 is scheduled for June 9-11, and speakers include former Vice President Al Gore, PayPal President David Marcus and Phil Libin, CEO of software company Evernote.